


Do Not Go Gentle

by Insatiable_Fox



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Abstract, Angst, Dark, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Isolation, Loneliness, M/M, Male Slash, Pining, Self-Acceptance, Self-Hatred, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-10
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-10-25 19:28:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17731232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Insatiable_Fox/pseuds/Insatiable_Fox
Summary: “The Passing of time means little to him, the inconsequential click of the clock merely the melody of this life he has chosen.”Harry Potter passes his days aimlessly walking the streets of London. Restless and disenchanted with life, he latches on to Draco Malfoy to fill the void. Draco, however, is in no place to be anyone’s saviour. Withdrawn, distant and riddled with guilt from the war, how is he meant to help Harry when he can’t even help himself?A story about moving on, breaking free, and not giving in.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> ****_+++_  
>  Do not go gentle into that good night,  
> Old age should burn and rave at close of day;  
> Rage, rage against the dying of the light.  
> Though wise men at their end know dark is right,  
> Because their words had forked no lightning they  
> Do not go gentle into that good night. 
> 
> Excerpt from ‘Do not go gentle into that good night’, Dylan Thomas, 1947   
> **_+++_**
> 
> As always, thanks to my wonderful beta, Maddison

He dreams the dreams of times less melancholy. Of nights where tears don’t stream down cheeks and hiccupped sobs don’t pollute the air. A break, from the realities of a dictator in decline.

Madness in the air playing master to the weak, forsaken bodies obedient as the puppeteer commands his decaying troupe. Desolation numbs his body. Hopeless helplessness as he sits curled in his chair, head hung, fingers absently tracing the lines of hate. 

Flick go the fingers of fate. The vision once desired now an anamorphic verisimilitude. Why did he not heed the warning? Sins of the father will always harrow the son. 

He dreams the dreams of times less melancholy and walks the streets he once envisioned to rule.

 

*

 

Rain falls from the unwavering black, cold and heavy against Harry’s face. His hair is slicked flat to his head, coat sodden, hands numb. A lone streetlight flickers, muted in the distance, but the insubstantial glow is not enough to penetrate the shadow of where he sits. A glimpse, that’s all he wants. Confirmation he’s not sinking languidly into insanity without even realising. An accidental descent, but he wouldn’t put it past fate. To deal him a hand like that. 

Was he a fool to come? He had been so sure, the platinum fall of hair something he swore could not be feigned. Just an impression from the corner of his eye, a lone soul treading an unlikely path in the pitch of night. What feels like yesterday - actually a week ago, and every eve since, he has come to wait. Come to see. Hoping for a sign it wasn’t all a beautiful illusion. 

He promises himself this will be the last time he waits for Draco Malfoy. 

He can’t tell yet if it’s a futile lie.

 

*

 

He dreams the dreams of times less ruined, of a boy complete with mind set and true. Who had laughed at humanity's altruism, and revelled in the anarchy of Armageddon. Unconcerned for the fallen prophesied to fall, for the blood spilt behind a manor's closed doors. 

Kingdom crumbling, master waits for a lord who shall not return. Aimless destruction fuels voracious insanity, insatiable as it devours all in its path. Sanctuary turned gallows; rejoice as the guillotine prevails. He stands. An unwilling witness to the chaos, bound by isolation and 

unable to abscond. 

Flick go the fingers of fate. Could he do it? Greet Death like a friend; take the hand of The Reaper?

He dreams the dreams of times less ruined and yearns for the streets he’s too guilty to roam. 

 

*

 

One week rolls into two, then another more. Still Harry waits. Dawn to dusk, for a man he cannot forget. The passing of time means little to him, the inconsequential click of the clock merely the melody of this life he has chosen. He watches as the world moves forward, feeling like a spectator from the sidelines. 

In the night he lets his defences drop.  Unleashes the loneliness he keeps buried within . Allows himself to mourn the ones he’s lost, and wish for the besmirched normality of his teenage years. A time when he felt alive. Ravaged by emotion and driven by need, a purpose that died with the conclusion of war and was never replaced. His friends try, of course, they’re too nice not to. Yet where they were freed by the end, he was trapped, and the trio was reduced by one. 

He wonders if Draco ever feels trapped.

He wonders if he’s simply chasing ghosts. 

He sits. Enshrouded in shadow, the moon high in the sky, footpaths hazily lit from its luminescence. He waits, searching for the unattainable knowledge he’s not alone in this disenchanted victory.

Dusk to dawn, weeks pass without thought. He tells himself this will be the last night he waits for Draco Malfoy. 

He now accepts it’s a futile lie.


	2. Chapter One: Sixty-Four Days

From the far end of the street, a figure emerges.

For a few long moments, Harry thinks he’s dreaming. Either that or hallucinating, a cruel trick of the psyche. A mirage, for surely he’s a drowning man forfeited to the sea. A wayward wanderer, thirsting for water. Mind providing him with the illusion he so perilously craves, for even his sanity has taken pity on the delusions of a broken fool.

Once his eyes have been rubbed and skin pinched, he tells himself it’s another. Not _his_ figure. Not the man he’s waiting for, the current purpose in his life. He’s too unlucky for that dream to come true, and Fate has once again proven her superiority, by giving him _someone_. But it’s not the _right one_ , Fate understands this - delights in his misery and laughs. For whoever the soul traversing the dead lands of the living may be - good or bad, friend or foe - Harry knows they could never mean anything more to him than a mear nod on the road.

Yet the illusion holds. The figure walks closer, platinum hair a halo against the obsidian sky. Their face is cast to the ground, stride heavy and forlorn, betraying none of the grace Harry knows it can hold. Feels, on some primal, base level. He’s almost certain it’s Draco. The rival from school. The shadow on the street. The flicker that haunts his nights.

All Harry wants to do is ask him, how?

How did he move on; how does he function day to day? Because Harry can’t fathom how to do so - is clutching at straws - yet he cannot disperse the lingering notion they’re unintentional parallels. Two sides of the same coin. Surely, if Draco can live with the aftermath of war, Harry should be able to, as well.

One stray, clutching, abandoned and destitute, to another; both lost adrift in an amaranthine storm.

Harry stands. Draco’s drawing nearer, will pass where he’s hidden soon. The thought of letting him go fills Harry with panic. It’s not the body of hours lost waiting for this very thing, those so very _insignificant_  weeks. More the feeling that this is his last opportunity. His one and only chance to grasp the lifering, or sink forever beneath the murky surface.  It’s a hard leap to take. So easy, to simply let time pass him by, an observer rather than the participant everyone expects him to be. A watcher of the world, unbiased and without opinion. So when he does eventually find himself back on the platform, awaiting that final train, he’ll be able to move on. For good, this time. Without fear of being needed again - the thing which pulled him back. Before.

He swallows, fingers twisting the piece of threadbare cloth tied around his wrist. A hard leap. Gaze on Draco, he steps forward onto the path of unknown.

“Hey.” Harry’s voice is ragged and low, yet it carries easily on the still air, noise ill and out of place in the silence. Draco flinches, head jerking up, body seizing and seeming to curl upon itself. He stares at Harry. There’s an emptiness in his eyes Harry recognises from his own, a dullness he knows reaches to the core. Draco’s hair is long, past the line of his shoulders, tall frame still slim.  He appears well dressed, clothes tailored nicely if not a little lose, although the stark whiteness of his shirt only emphasises the gaunt shadows under his eyes. There’s also a fragility to him. An unseen haze which lingers. He looks as if the slightest wind would break him; or perhaps he’s already broken.

His mouth opens and closes several times before he manages to speak, and when he does it’s barely a whisper. “Potter,” he says, and his shoulders hunch even more. His eyes are flickering to Harry and away again, each time landing on a slightly different spot. It’s as if Draco can’t quite believe he’s real, which is something Harry understands. How long has he waited for confirmation of his own illusion? Draco’s hand moves forward slightly into the space between their two bodies before he hastily clamps it back down at his side. “What are you doing here?” he eventually questions.

“I've been waiting for you.” It never crosses Harry’s mind to say anything bar the truth. “Hoping I'd see you again.”

Draco’s eyebrow raises a fraction, as if Harry’s answer is inconceivable. Beyond the realm of possibility. “You’ve seen me before?”

Harry wants to take a step closer. Curl his fingers around Draco’s wrist. Prove to both of them the other is actually there; stop the possibility of the other man fleeing. Instead, he repeats, “I’ve been waiting for you.”

“Why?”

The word hangs in the air. Why indeed? Why has Harry sat here for weeks on end, suffering through the bitter cold on the off chance Draco would once again walk this way? How does he even start to explain to his once-enemy how he felt like he had no other choice? That, for reasons better left unexplored, Draco had somehow turned from the antagonist to the protagonist in Harry’s aftermath story? The key to, well, if not happiness, then contentment. The only person Harry thinks will understand. Him. This. Everything.

Harry’s hands are numb; he shoves them into his coat pockets. “I don’t know,” he finally answers. “Not exactly. I’ll tell you when I've figured it out for sure.”

Draco nods slowly, as if Harry’s answer makes sense. Maybe it does. Or perhaps Draco just thinks he’s gone crazy.  “How many times have you waited here for me?”

Harry blinks. “Every night since you were last here.” He thought that’d been clear.

“It’s been sixty-four days.”

“I don’t keep count.”

In the distance an owl hoots, and Harry’s reminded of what he’s lost. The joy the sound used to bring, the comfort. Inside his jacket, his fingers curl into a ball. What he’d give to stroke her feathers one more time. When he turns back, Draco’s regarding him with an expression Harry can’t place. “Potter. Are you okay?”

Harry wants to laugh. Does he look okay? Does he _not_ ? Hermione asks the same question every time he sees her, yet it hits him harder now it’s voiced from another.  Unsteady, he takes a step forward, Draco’s stare wary as Harry quickly presses an index finger to his shoulder. _Real_. “Are you?”

Draco snorts. It is an undignified noise, something Harry couldn't imagine the Draco of Hogwarts emitting. But they aren't the children they were at school, are they? Harry's existence is proof of that. Even more so is the fact he’s standing here with Draco under the anamorphic light of a waning moon, and Draco isn't running. Isn't throwing curses.

It’s victory, there's no other word for it. Sweet and tangible; the first since the war. The first he’s believed.

Harry turns away, looking out across the gloom of slumbering London to mask the smile he can feel pulling at his mouth. A foreign feeling, one he knows Draco isn't ready to see yet.  He’s acutely aware of Draco beside him, wants to turn to him. Look at him. Hold his gaze and bury his face into Draco’s neck for no other reason than to feel another’s skin against his.  Instead, he exhales loudly through his nose, head tilting up when a drop of rain breaks across his forehead.

“It’s going to pour down,” Draco announces, and Harry realises Draco’s evaded his question. He’s right, though. Within seconds the clouds are opening up, dispersing their pressure in thick, fat drops which shatter loudly against the concrete. Harry’s drenched instantly - Draco couldn’t have fared any better. There’s no point in seeking cover, and anyway, he likes this weather. The cold, bone-deep wetness which seems to seep into his very core, igniting senses even as it dulls nerves to a dangerous point. It's in moments like these, Harry never feels more inconsequential. Mother Nature raging crude destruction, his body alive with his own mortality, it's what he's always desired. What he fights to achieve.  A flash of lightning momentarily illuminates the pallor of Draco’s face and his brows pull down into a frown. “The taste of death, which dance along light,” he intones lowly before shaking himself. “I’ve got to go.” The storm gathers closer to where they stand, rolling overhead . “Lucius doesn't deal well with this.”

“With what?” Harry can’t seem to draw his gaze from Draco’s profile.

Draco gestures loosely, expression pinched. “This. Lightening. Life.”

He turns to leave and Harry panics, hand darting out to clasp Draco’s bicep. He flinches but Harry doesn’t let go, tugging him gently so he’s forced to look at Harry. “When are you coming back?”

Draco’s lips twitch, the smile he manages to eventually produce so destitute it near ruins Harry. “I can’t answer what I don’t know, Potter” he replies softly. “No one’s promised the end of day.”

Harry swallows. “But I will see you again, right?”

Draco nods slowly. “If I can, I will.” He pulls himself from Harry’s grasp and starts back the way he came. In what feels like seconds he’s lost to the torrent of rain. Before long, Harry is once again alone in the night.

“The taste of death” Harry murmurs aimlessly, pulling his glasses from his face in a vain attempt to dry the lenses. He drops himself heavily to the ground, uncaring of the wetness which instantly saturates his pants. He feels hollow, wrung out. An empty vessel needing to be filled.  Alive and physically intact, yet held together only by the frailest wisps of twine. Still. Draco had been here. He’d conversed with Harry, and hadn’t looked at him like he was insane, nor pitied him with knowing eyes whilst gently suggesting ' _perhaps he talk to someone’._

It’d been more than Harry had hoped for.

He stays on the pavement long enough for his legs to grow numb and fingers purple from the cold, unwilling to leave the place offering the only tangible evidence Draco was ever there. Defeat is inevitable, however. As black tinges with the pink of a new day, Harry peels himself from the ground with a sigh of resignation, closing his eyes and apparating to an empty Grimmauld Place.

His feet touch down with a creak from the old floorboards. The kitchen blinds are drawn, dust motes floating lazily in the few weak strips of dawn light managing to penetrate the slats. He goes through the motions of tea making in a trance, mind only pulled from thoughts of Draco when an absent gulp from the mug promptly scalds his mouth. “Merlin fuck,” he splutters as the cup slips from his fingers, hitting the floor.  It’s stupid and ridiculous, but he can’t stop the brief conviction _Draco_ would never make such an asinine mistake. Broken man or not.

He glares at the mug, which has - to add insult - managed to stay intact despite its collision with the wooden floor. On impulse, he sends a quick ‘ _reducto_ ’ in its direction, watching smugly as the spell obliterates the ceramic. The glow of the sun is growing brighter around the edges of the blinds and he can hear the outside world slowing waking up,  can feel his body shutting down in return. He’s not quite ready for bed yet, though. Not ready to part with the day that’s brought him closer to... _something_. Instead, he methodically makes his way through the house, room to room:

The rarely used parlour - Hermione’s pitiful, unwilling stage. The location where she’d stood more than once, desperate appeals falling on deaf ears, Ron fidgeting on the settee whilst Harry stands in stoic silence. Dust sheets cover the aging chesterfields, although who put them there is a mystery. He can’t remember the last time he was in there; the last time people were over. It’s a soothing thought.

Harry’s favourite bathroom. The one with the tub big enough for five. It never fails to remind him of his day spent in the prefect's bath, surrounded by bubbles and an alarmingly lustful Moaning Myrtle. When the chains of this life promise eternity, when time’s hands advance with a sluggish intensity and intent, he likes to pretend he’s back there. At Hogwarts; in the bath. Body burning with desire, and purpose, and focus. With _life_. Alone, but so _fucking free_  he could cry.

Next, his least favourite bathroom. The one with ‘ _S + R’_ scratched chicken-hand into the porcelain under the sink. Found one day in a fit of cleaning, and pondered for many more, he still doesn't know exactly who they stand for. Who made them. Why they’d hide it. Menace whispers in the confines of this room, a nefarious ooze of _wrong,_ and he knows these walls have been privy to humanity’s darkest sins.  He doesn’t enter, simply pauses at the door to sweep his eyes over the dingy space before moving on.

Kreacher’s door. He stops with a fond smile. A linen cupboard-turned house elf abode he doesn't dare invade. Kreacher's the one constant in his life, the only constant he doesn't resent. Guiltily, the mess he left in the kitchen comes to mind, before he decides the decrepit elf will probably relish a change in routine, and leaves it be.

All too soon Harry arrives outside his own door. He lays his forehead lightly to the tarnished nameplate as he does every morning before sleep, letting the dull metal press into his skin for a moment then pushing his way into what was once Sirius’ room. With mechanical movements, he strips the wet clothes from his body and climbs into bed.

The start of the day for most; the end for him. Still, this collection of hours has been better than most. They contained Draco, and Draco meant _purpose_.  

He falls asleep faster that night than he has the last sixty-four.


	3. Chapter Two: Twenty-Seven Days

Draco returns on a night when snow lays heavy upon the ground and the sky is devoid of moon and cloud.  Harry sits like he's always sat. Waiting like he's always waited. The beauty of a life unconstrained by time or commitment. Harry is staring, unfocused, over the white rooftops of London when Draco appears beside him, any sound of advance having been muffled by the snow.

“Draco” Harry sighs in way of greeting, relief evident in his voice. To say he hadn’t been worried would be to lie. Multiple times he’d convinced himself Draco had been nothing more than a dream. Or, worse, a once-off. Unwilling to meet again. He turns to the man who occupies his every waking moment, and intrudes upon his slumber. Draco’s face is the colour of bone, cast in shadow and unreadable, gaze averted to an invisible horizon.

“Twenty-seven days, Potter.” Draco’s voice rasps on his name. “Near a month since I’ve last been.”

Harry swallows, eyes fixed to a face refusing to turn. “It feels like longer,” he replies honestly.

Draco bows his head slowly in agreement, the shift in shadow throwing his cheek into relief and highlighting sickly, discoloured bruises. He realises his mistake as it happens, jerking his face back into gloom. Too late, however; Harry had already seen. How could he _not_ , when all he _sees_ is Draco. It’s the sight of weals which make him forget he shouldn’t touch, hand reaching to grasp Draco’s jaw even as his hitched intake of breath rattles the still air.

Draco freezes as Harry’s fingers contact pallid skin. His flesh is soft under Harry’s touch, pulled taut over cheek and jaw bones, barely a whisper of stubble to be felt. He moves to see Draco’s entire face, jaw still caught. Purples, yellows, greens emerge as Harry slowly unveils his features, sharp contours only succeeding in highlighting trauma which travels from eye to throat. Rage rushes through Harry, catching him by surprise. How long has it been since he’s felt this? Cared enough about anything, or anyone, to trigger more than his usual idle disinterest? The fury burns intoxicatingly sweet in his veins, and even as he chokes “the fuck, Draco,” past gritted teeth, one part of him is revelling in the onslaught of emotion stirring his anesthetised limbs.

At the sound of Harry’s voice, Draco pulls himself away. “I fell. It’s nothing.” He’s not even trying; that’s the part which hits Harry the hardest. With strangulation marks around his neck, a black eye and bruised cheek, the man who’d always had a snarky retort - who’d never let another see him weak - was now proclaiming ‘ _nothing_ ’, with empty eyes and blank gaze. Harry can only guess at the aggressor, but he knows, of course. What it’s like. To not care what happens to you, one way or another. The problems arose when _others_ did, or expected _you_ to do so.

Only the broken ones practice indifference. The ones whose minds have yielded before their bodies, stared into the abyss and found themselves unwilling to return. They’re the careless. The interestless. The lifeless. The less.

Draco’s all of the above. He shouldn’t be. He’s not _allowed_ to be; marked to be safety, not surrender. Because what was the point of abandoning purgatory, only for a crumbling paradise?  

A disturbance in the air pulls him from his reverie. When he returns, Draco has moved away, toward the frozen lake the path he’s on encircles. Harry watches as Draco lowers himself to the stonework along the water's edge, legs dangling free over the ledge. One un-gloved hand trails aimlessly through loose snow, the other he tucks between his thighs. He’s wearing robes today. Warm ones, Harry assumes, although he would have sworn they were more suited to a gala, than the wet banks of London.   

He wonders how Draco fills his days. With the war long ended - trials complete, and Ministry celebrations finished - does the stretch of time ahead seem as daunting and unfeasible as it does to Harry? As unattainable?

Is Draco a participant in the life around him, or merely spectating? Would he be missed is he was to simply disappear, or would people panic? Search for him? Mourn?

Harry seats himself beside Draco. Rear on the stone, legs over the edge, their shoulders brushing with the movement of Draco’s hand. It feels like the first contact he’s had since Hogwarts, unfurling something inside him he hadn’t known was clenched. Despite the distant shutters enclosing Draco’s eyes, his telling silence, Harry still feels a connection to him. A tether, a pull, drawing them closer.

Perhaps it’s because Draco ignites his dormant saviour complexion. Perhaps he’s right to say they’re the same.  

“How’s your father?” He needs to break the silence; desperate for this bond to strengthen.

Draco’s lips tighten. “Do you honestly care, Potter?”

“I care about you.”

“One is not the other.”

Harry sighs. Changed or not, Draco’s still bloody hard work. His fingers slide unconsciously under the string around his wrist, worrying it back and forth. “Are you happy?” He regrets the question immediately; Draco’s fists clench and his expression turns incredulous. It’s the most animated Harry has seen him since... _since_.

“Happy? Fucking _happy_ ?” Draco’s voice has risen an octave, a pink flush tinting typically ashy cheeks. It’s painfully, teasingly, _wonderful_. A glimpse of the boy who had filled Harry’s younger years with the passion he so perilously craves.  “I reside with a psychopath, within the walls another claimed as his own. There is never a minute in which an unforgivable is not cast! I-I...” He stumbles, chokes. Just like that, Draco deflates. Shoulders slumping forward, his mouth a thin, pressed line, outrage extinguished - a flame beneath a hurricane. When he speaks, minutes or hours or years later, it’s with the voice of a dead man. “No, Potter. I am not happy. I rather doubt you are, either.”

Harry’s not; it hurts to think back to a time when he was. The last time. The Forest of Dean, perhaps, the Golden Trio against the world. Fatigued bodies, weary minds, perpetual fear - of failure, of what was behind them. What was coming for them. Of _succeeding_. Now, in the endless cycle of day and night, he weeps for the children they had been. What they’d had, gullible to the belief it could never be lost. Hope. Purpose. Drive. The conflagration of emotion. Each other.

Ron. The first, from the very first platform. Who’d risked his family to go; came back to one less. Harry can’t blame Ron for wanting to move forward. His past holds nothing but Fred.

Hermione. Who _surrendered_ her family. Stood before them and erased herself from their minds, because she knew without her, he and Ron could never succeed. Who, even in the darkest moments, held his hand and found the light.

_Hey little train, wait for me_  
_I was held in chains but now I’m free_  
_I’m hanging in there, don’t you see_ _  
_ In this process of elimination

Harry knows it wasn’t them who’d renounced what they’d had. It was him who didn’t - still _doesn't_ \-  have the strength to stray from the past.

Then there’s Draco. The boy who had not exposed him, nor readily acquiesced to a desperate tyrant, drunk on fictions putrid and sweet - willingly naive for an illusory ending.  Instead, he’d walked away. A boy, who, in the end, had been _strong_.

What happened to that boy?

_Hey little train, we’re jumping on_  
_The train that goes to the Kingdom_  
_We’re happy, Ma, we’re having fun_ _  
_ And the train ain’t even left the station

Harry’s pulled back by a gentle thumb brushing his wet cheek, and he knows he’s been crying.

“It’s okay, Potter. No one expects you to be happy.” Draco’s voice is soft, palm ghosting across Harry’s jaw.

“They do.” He winces as soon as he’s said it, can hear bitterness poisoning the words.

Draco’s hand presses harder to Harry’s cheek. “I don’t,” he whispers, and Harry’s heart aches. Merlin, he _wants_ Draco. Not in the way he first did, or should he say not only. He’s still convinced Draco’s the key to a life post-war. But now, alongside that, is the need to run his hands over bare, pale skin. Feel the dip of Draco’s stomach, the curve of his thigh, the thrum of blood under Harry’s fingers. He wants to hold Draco. Lie with their bodies curled together, legs entwined, chest to chest - each the other's safety net from the world. He wants Draco, all of him in every way - terrifying, absurd, irrational, yet somehow right. He is neither bad nor good, neither an illusion nor symbolic of the serpentine malevolence Harry once slew. No longer merely an instrument in the fight against the past, now the promise of something more.

It’s been an age since he felt attraction. Fitting it should be Malfoy to ignite it; pity that to act would cement his damnation.

Once again, the sky is lightning, another night ceding to day’s incessant siege. Draco stands, brushing snow from his robes. Too soon for Harry; too late for Draco, who is glancing at the receding dark with his brows drawn.  “It’s time for me to go,” he says. “It’s probably already been noticed.”

Harry doesn’t beg him to stay, scarcely resists the compulsion to. “What has?” he asks instead.

“My absence.”

“It almost sounds like you’re not meant to leave your home?” Harry’s not sure if it’s a statement or a question.  

“I prefer my actions to go unrecorded.” Draco straightens his robes unnecessarily. “Although nothing you need to worry about, Potter.”

Harry remembers Draco’s ‘nothing’. He’s not convinced. On impulse, he digs his hand into his pocket, rummaging. “Do you have a quill?” he asks, followed by “don’t worry,” as he finds the muggle pen he was after. He looks at Draco. “I suppose parchment’s a bit much to ask for?”

Draco glances between him and the biro with apprehension. “No, Potter. I don’t tend to carry stationary in my pockets. Unlike you.”

“Never mind. Give me your hand.” Draco’s trepid gaze moves from the biro to Harry, although the rest of his body shows no inclination toward movement. With a sigh, Harry takes Draco’s hand himself, suppressing a shudder at the contact. Insted, he turns it palm-up, stepping closer. “Hold it there,” he instructs, before pressing the pen to Draco’s skin. Draco flinches, but allows Harry to continue.

“What is this?” He asks once Harry has finished, holding his palm rigid to inspect it. Blue ink mars ashy white, hypnotic in its illicitness; heady in its taboo.

Harry swallows, attention still fixed on the muggle lines tarnishing pureblood skin.“My address.” Draco’s eyes flick from his hand to stare at Harry. “If you ever need somewhere to go. Anytime.” Harry pauses, feeling uncomfortable; thankful when Draco drops his gaze to his palm again. “The pen will fade soon.”

“I’ll remember it. Thank you.”

It’s hard to say goodbye. Even harder when there are no promises it won’t be the last one. Draco’s existence in Harry’s life feels as insubstantial as a phantasm; just as likely to disappear. Harry’s beautiful illusion, too good to be true - he is well versed in the nature of his own endings. He needs something from Draco; a string to hold. “Meet me here tomorrow.”

“I need to go.” Face cast to the sky, day emerging as victor, now a dusty orange.

“Draco. Please. Tomorrow.” He can hear his neediness; doesn't care.

Draco pauses. Seemingly reluctant, he eventually relents. “Two weeks,” he says, voice firm. “I’ll meet you in two weeks. You have to promise me something, however.”

“Anything.” Harry means it. Would do it.

“Do not wait for me. Don’t come back till then.”

Hard, but not impossible. There are other streets to roam, until then. “Okay. But you will come, Draco?”

“Two weeks,” Draco repeats. He’s walking away already, managing to merge into the rising dawn despite black robes. Harry wonders, as Draco disappears the same way he did previously, why he doesn’t simply apparate?

Does he, like Harry, have time to lose? To burn, to will away, mechanically performing the dance yet forever anticipating the denouement?

Is Draco only waiting for the platform to open?

Left with questions, knowing there will be no answers, Harry walks.

Mind drifting whilst feet instinctively trudge the familiar streets, it comes as a shock when Ron and Hermione’s house looms before him  A millennium since he has walked the path intentionally, yet his body knows this journey as well as it knows the one to his own home.

He is fatigued; eyes shadowed and body weary. Yet an unknown need compels him to the shadows congregating in the far end corner of the yard.  Through the french doors, he watches Hermione. Crossed-legged, ministry robes pressed immaculately, coffee mug in hand. Harry can’t remember her so blithe around him - a time she was so content. The lines which strain her face in his company are missing, eyes free of the worry he unwillingly yet inevitably adds. He stays a few breaths longer; observes as Ron, auror uniform slung casually over shoulder, kisses his wife good morning. Laughs at an unheard comment, steals a sip from her mug.

Harry withdraws. Confirmation, validity of knowledge already known.

Aboard the carriage, fire stoked and final whistle blowing, they’ll be fine. He’s succeeded; all ties to life severed.

Now, when Harry pictures farewell, Draco’s beside him.

_This life is overwhelming and I’m ready for the next one._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First set of lyrics are from 'O Children' by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds.
> 
> Ending lyrics ( _This life is overwhelming and I'm ready for the next one_ ) are from Badflower's 'Ghost'.


End file.
